Spare Change
by Toccata No. 9
Summary: Two-Face is no more. Harvey Dent finds himself less than he once was, and faces the challenges of reformation.
1. Forgiveness

**AN: I do not own.**

He sits in his new apartment, which is dingier than the house he'd lived in with Gilda but nicer than the theaters and basements he's occupied in recent years. It's small, undecorated, asymmetrical. There are water stains on the ceiling but no roaches, the couch is tattered, the carpet faded brown and the walls off-white. Still. It's home and it's legitimate.

He keeps the blinds shut.

Part of him misses the coin. It was, among other things, a good escape for moments like this when he feels restless. He isn't used to doing nothing with his hands.

The coin is at the bottom of the river.

Harvey didn't leave for a long time after it sank. Part of him (not quite half) fantasized about leaping in after it, letting himself go. Eventually he just sat on the docks, breathing in pollution and telling himself he could smell the ocean.

Pamela visited. She was unusually quiet, and let him make her a cup of coffee despite drinking none of it. She didn't try to persuade him to come back, or mention her plants, or bring up any of the occasions they'd spent together. For better or worse.

"What are you doing with yourself, Harv?" she'd asked, and he looked her in the eye for as long as he could before turning away without an answer.

He still hasn't let them touch his face.

Pamela kissed him on his good cheek when she left, and there was nothing more to it than that. She hasn't called since.

Gordon wants him to talk to kids about gangs and staying out of them. Be one of those checkered-past speakers explaining the evils of crime while trying to persuade his audience that this is more important than some joke or snatch of gossip. It's probably the only speaking platform left that might listen to him.

Once upon a time the public elected him DA in a landslide. Look at him now.

There's a knock at the door.

"Harvey!" Says Bruce Wayne when he answers, unphased. "How's a busy guy like you holding together these days?"

The man is an airhead. But he's an airhead who bothered to stop by, and he's an airhead whose money lets him afford a roof over his head and dinner at night. His shoulders slump and he feels himself smile, weakly.

"It's good to see you," he says, and Wayne claps a hand on his shoulder. Smiles back.

It's been a long time.

Harvey lets him in.


	2. What Remains

Harvey hasn't been to Bruce's office before. The windows span from floor to ceiling, and he has a sense of almost-vertigo seeing all the other skyscrapers stretch out beneath them. The room has a grayish cast to it, crisp and neat and utterly impersonal. Not very much like the clutter of his DA office. Back in the day.

Bruce is finishing up behind his desk, chatting over legal intricacies and company policies as a favor between friends. It's not really Harvey's specialty anymore, but it's a nice exercise. A nice gesture.

Tucking the last file into his drawer (which is meticulously organized, like everything else in this tower), Bruce leans back in his chair and peers up at him.

"Do you miss it?"

Harvey isn't sure what to say to that, flounders, looks down at the streets and the cars and the people drifting to and fro like specks of dust. Then he looks back over his shoulder again and decides (which still takes getting used to—not too long ago he would have flipped for his response) that there's nothing wrong with answering a question with a question. "Miss what?"

Bruce smiles a little too easily, as if this scarred, mismatched figure standing in front of him has never been a criminal, has never set foot in an asylum or raved about chance and fate and the inherent duality of everything on national television. As if he's never threatened or stolen or killed because a goddamn scrap of metal said so. "Any of it."

He examines his own reflection in the glass. The normal side of him, the right side, the Harvey side has become lined over the years. Tired, hollow, no longer Apollo like they used to call him. He'll never be Gotham's white knight again, and hasn't been for a long time. "Every day," he says, and he thinks of all the people he's never said goodbye to over the years, the friends and madmen he'll probably never see again. He keeps throwing people away as if they were only things.

He clasps his hands behind his back, tightly.

"Do you think it's possible to start over, Bruce?"

There's a long silence behind him, and he wonders if perhaps he's pushing it. Wayne never has been one for serious topics.

"Not really," Bruce answers after a while, and the breath leaves Harvey so quietly he almost doesn't feel it. "But that's fine. You can always use what's left to make some good. Right?"

Something twists inside him, and abruptly he wishes he could be alone, could throw all his choices away and be forgotten as just one more ugly piece of history. It shouldn't be so bad. It shouldn't _scare_ him this much.

"You'll be okay." For the first time Bruce seems to be speaking carefully, his words quieter. Maybe even thoughtful. "You still have something very important."

"And what's that?"

Wayne gets up, wanders over to stand beside him. After a moment, Harvey turns.

He's smiling.

"A friend with one hell of a yacht. How'd you feel about joining me and a few friends for a cruise at the end of the week?"

Harvey laughs, and something inside him begins to loosen. "I don't know. Do you think it's a good idea?"

"Sure I do. What could happen?"

He imagines the uneasy stares, the careful conversations, the unspoken accusations.

Bruce claps him on the back.

"Stop worrying so much. You'll have a great time. Trust me."

And Harvey says yes.


End file.
